Abstract
Miami University Libraries harnessed the power of asset mapping to create and manage eight remote digital projects during the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing on library staff and students from across the university. This chapter documents the steps and actions and offers insights into techniques and approaches that may be adopted under different circumstances. Asset mapping facilitated matching available staff and skills with available projects and resulted in a dramatic increase in productivity. Properly deploying asset mapping involves identifying ways to provide benefit to all involved parties. Special collections used the quarantine to jumpstart alliances with other departments, who provided staff time, skill, and labor, but the initiative's success is demonstrated not merely by productivity during quarantine but staff interest in maintaining a degree of involvement afterward.
TopBackground
Miami University was founded in 1809 as the second public university in Ohio. It is a mid-sized institution with a number of masters and doctoral graduate programs although the university focuses on undergraduate education. The main campus in Oxford is primarily a residential institution, but the university also maintains small regional campuses in Hamilton and Middletown. Similarly, the main campus libraries work with the regional campus libraries to provide services to all students, faculty, and staff. For the purposes of this chapter, references to Miami University Libraries indicate the main campus libraries unless stated otherwise.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Asset Mapping: A strategy for identifying, mapping, and visualizing assets in a community or organization.
Transcription: The act or process of transcribing or copying.
Collaboration: United labor or co-operation.
Cross-Training: Teaching employees hired to perform one job function the skills necessary to perform other functions.
Pandemic: Epidemic disease spread over a very large area and affecting a large proportion of a population.
Asset-Based Community Development: A strategy directed towards sustainable, economic development that is community-driven.
Mutual Benefit: An arrangement whereby all parties gain advantage or value.
Miami University (Ohio): A public university in southwestern Ohio.
Metadata: Data created and maintained to describe and give information about other data. AU32: Reference appears to be out of alphabetical order. Please check
Digitization: The act or process of converting physical materials into digital objects.